Handover

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT HANDOVER - PAGE 4

* Protesters blame army for violence that killed 11 * Army pledges will stick to mid-year handover of power * May take years to disengage army from Egyptian politics By Tamim Elyan and Marwa Awad CAIRO, May 3 (Reuters) - Egypt's ruling generals said on Thursday they would press ahead with this month's presidential election despite fresh street violence and would step back from politics, although analysts said they would still pull strings after a formal handover.

Dmitry Medvedev, the next face of Russian power and rebirth, is by no means a carbon copy of his mentor, Vladimir Putin. As he strides into a conference room here in one of Russia's industrial hubs, his boyish looks and rounded shoulders contrast starkly with the icy persona and judo athlete's physique of the country's current president. But Putin's Russia will stay Putin's Russia for the foreseeable future, most observers believe, so Medvedev strains to look and sound like his longtime overseer.

By the time U.S. officials abruptly took custody of four Algerians accused of plotting attacks in Sarajevo and took them to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, they had been improperly stripped of their citizenship and denied basic human rights in various botched legal processes, their lawyers and the UN's human-rights office argued at a hearing Wednesday. The arguments were presented before the Human Rights Chamber, a court composed of 14 judges from Bosnia and other European countries that was set up under the Dayton Peace Agreement ending the four-year war in Bosnia.

By Mirwais Harooni KABUL, May 10 (Reuters) - Afghanistan faces tougher security challenges in the next phase of a transition from foreign to Afghan forces as insurgents step up their attacks, Afghan officials said on Thursday. President Hamid Karzai is expected to announce on Sunday the transfer of 230 districts and the centres of all provincial capitals to Afghan control in the third phase of a handover before most NATO troops pull out by the end of 2014. "In 2014 we will face a national survival test, but our enemies have to know that this nation is committed to fulfil this process," Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, head of the transition process, told reporters in Kabul.

Rock bands and dancing dragons joined the celebration Sunday of the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's hand-over to China, but there were also protests to demand democracy and anxiety about the future of the former British colony. After a bumpy decade of recession followed by a robust recovery with help from the booming mainland, Hong Kong's ports are losing dominance to Shanghai and Singapore, and impatience for full democracy is growing -- a source of friction with the city's communist overlords in Beijing.

Two helicopters sent by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez landed in Colombia on Friday on a delicate mission to pluck three hostages from the rebel-held jungle. "The operation has begun. With these two helicopters goes great hope," Chavez said as two Russian-made MI-172 helicopters took off bearing Red Cross insignia and Venezuelan flags. "We're going to get those three people in the coming days." Colombia agreed to allow the helicopters into its territory to pick up former congresswoman Consuelo Gonzalez, hostage Clara Rojas and her young son. The women have been held captive for about six years.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators said early Thursday that they had again failed to resolve a deadlock over a delayed Israeli handover of 5 percent of West Bank land to Palestinian control. "We are trying our best to find a solution to this problem," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said after a marathon session with his Israeli counterpart, Oded Eran, at a Jerusalem hotel. Eran said he hoped the dispute would be solved in the next few days. The Israeli pullback is more than a week overdue as the sides wrangle over which areas will be put under Palestinian control.

The U.S. military on Friday postponed a weekend ceremony to hand over responsibility for security in Anbar province to the Iraqi government, citing forecasts of bad weather. Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, a military spokesman, said the decision was not connected to a suicide bombing at a community meeting in the Anbar town of Karmah on Thursday that killed more than 20 people, including three U.S. Marines and two interpreters. High winds and dust storms are expected Saturday. Hughes said the conditions would prevent U.S. and Iraqi officials from flying to the event.

Two Libyans long wanted in the bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, could be in custody by Dec. 21, the 10th anniversary of the disaster, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said Sunday in London. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spent Saturday in Libya, discussing with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi a handover of the two men suspected by Britain and the U.S. in the 1988 explosion, which killed 270 people. "I think you could sum up our mood as one of qualified optimism," Cook said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp.